And turn away thinking, he wouldn’t dare. Not my son. Take off without telling me? Not Tommy. At the same time, the comment about game winners getting free ice cream bothers me. Did Tommy know? And if so, why hit me up for three bucks? Did he have other plans? Plans that included a little pocket change?

Now I’m more than uneasy. Call it anxious. Anxious but not quite ready to call 911. Or more directly, Sheriff Corso, our team coach. Because I can already hear Fred telling me not to worry. The boy was excited, okay? Getting that big hit went to his head. Enough so he forgot to tell Mom he was getting a ride home with somebody else. Some group of rambunctious teammates who wanted to praise him.

I hit Home on my cell and hear it chirping. My own voice comes on the line, suggesting I leave a message. “Tommy, are you there, honey? Pick up, please.”

But I’m keenly aware that Tommy hates letting the answering machine cut in. He’ll kill himself racing for the phone, even if there’s no prospect that the call is for him. Bruises on his shins to prove it.

Where’s my boy? And what is he thinking, scaring me like this?

I march to the gymnasium entrance, convinced he’s inside using the boys’ room, or more probably raising some kind of hell with his buddies. The entrance is locked, but I can see into the gymnasium. It’s dim and empty. And silent. No laughing boys. No lockers slamming. Nobody home. Just silence.

I hurry to the Caravan. I’ll just quick check at our house before calling Fred Corso.

I have to force myself not to stomp on the accelerator leaving the empty parking lot. Thinking, Tommy, how could you do this to me? Make me worry like this? Is this the way it’s going to be for the next five years? Scamming Mom for money, not coming home until the crack of dawn?

Get a grip, I urge myself. One of the other mothers offered him a ride. He felt it would be impolite to say no, and they took off before he could tell me. Some variation on that. But still, no excuse. He knows I worry.

Already I’ve covered six blocks. Must have passed through two lights but have no recollection of it. Driving on autopilot while my frazzled mind cranks out scenarios. All of which conclude with me giving Tommy a big hug and telling him never do that again. Never make your mother think the worst might happen.

I’m held up on the last light on Porter Road. Elderly couple can’t get it together to actually go when the light turns green. “Q-tips,” Tommy calls them. Meaning elderly drivers with that soft white, cotton-ball hair peeking up over the seat backs. Can’t recall the last time I really blasted the horn, but this time I punch it hard and the driver jerks in his seat like he’s been shot and then lurches his Lincoln Town Car through the intersection. More horns, some of them directed at me.

Weaving through the confusion I’ve created, I cut into the intersection, get my lane and remember to use the turn signal for our street, good old Linden Terrace, coming up quickly on the left. Actually a cul-de-sac with a turnaround at the end, which cuts down on the through traffic and probably adds ten grand to the evaluation of all the homes there. Well worth it, we all agree. Not that I care about property taxes right now. Not with Tommy filling my head.

Almost there. Almost home. Third from the end. The big, cedar-shingled Cape-style beauty behind the two massive maples that have taken over the front lawn. One full acre, with commonly held woodlands behind. There’s a separate three-car garage, also shingled, which came in handy when I was starting up the catering business. It was the big garage that first sold Ted on the place. You never know when it might come in handy, he’d said. He was thinking “boat,” but for a while it held stacks of folding tables and chairs, crates of crockery. Totally against the local zoning laws, of course—no business activity allowed, not even storage—but my neighbors took pity on the young widow and looked the other way until I could afford to rent a proper warehouse. Much appreciated, that quiet act of kindness. Sometimes looking the other way is just what the doctor ordered. Better than casseroles left on the step or offers to babysit. Give her time, they must have urged each other, and now the garage was just a garage again and Tommy is eleven years old and giving his mother fits.

Leaving the van in the driveway, I bound up the breezeway steps, kick the screen door open and approach the inner door with key in hand. Because we always lock up and activate the alarm. Nice neighborhood, but still. Bridgeport is a mere three miles down the road, and in Bridgeport they have gangs and drugs and crime that sometimes manages to seep into suburban Fairfax. So we lock.

But the door is unlocked and the alarm isn’t sounding. And that can mean only one thing. I’m already heaving a sigh of relief as I enter the kitchen area.

“Tommy?” I call out. “Tommy! I was worried sick! What were you thinking?”

No response. Pretending he can’t hear me. Pretending he didn’t do anything wrong. Ready with a facile fib about how he did so tell me he was getting a ride home and it must have slipped my mind. Early-’zeimers, Mom. You’re losing it.

“Tommy?”

The TV is on in the family room. Low but audible. A Sony PlayStation game. It will be Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven, his current favorite, or maybe the new Tomb Raider. But game or not, the little scamp can hear me fine. And now he’s starting to piss me off. He should be here in the kitchen, ready with an apology, however lame.

“Tommy! Turn off the TV!”

I march into the family room, expecting to see my son perched in front of the big-screen TV, manipulating the controls of his precious PlayStation.

But Tommy isn’t there.

“Hello, Mrs. Bickford. Take a seat, would you, please?”

There’s a man in my brown leather chair. He has Tommy’s video-game control box on his knee, working the joystick with his left hand. His face is obscured by a black ski mask.

In his right hand is a pistol, and he’s aiming it at me.

3 olly-olly-entry

There are only five rooms in the house, not counting the basement, and Lyla searches all of them. Each room, and the basement, too, looking for Jesse. The boy must be playing hide-and-seek. A game he loved when he was five, only a little less so now that he’s reached the advanced age of eleven, when boys are usually past wanting to play with their mothers.

Her Jesse is an exception. He’s an athletic kid, fit and lean and tall for his age, but in some respects he’s still Momma’s little boy. Any moment now he’ll leap out of a closet, or out from under the stairwell, with a gleeful boo! and her hands will fly to her heart.

You scared me, dear!

He’ll kill himself laughing, holding his tummy, bent over from the sheer joy of it.

Oh, Mom, you’re such a wuss!

That she is; from the first day that she held his tiny body, all she’s ever done is worry. Worry, worry, worry, morning, noon and night, until it makes her dizzy with anxiety. Worry that he’ll wander into the swimming pool and drown—not that they have a pool, thank God. Worry that he’ll tumble down the stairs where he likes to play mountain climber. Worry that he’ll fall from his bicycle, or worse, that he’ll be stolen by a child snatcher who looks, in her waking nightmares, like Freddy Krueger.

She reminds herself that there are no Freddy Kruegers in the real world, certainly not in boring old New London, Connecticut. And that Jesse has fallen on the stairs more than once and received nothing more dangerous than a bruise or two. Took a wild spill from his bike, for that matter, and wore the scabs on his knees like badges of honor, no tears and no complaints. He’s a sturdy boy, her Jesse, heals quickly. Healthy as a horse, unlike his doting mom, who suffers from a variety of infirmities, not the least of which is a background hum of fear that never leaves her, not even when she’s sleeping.